Middle class parents turn to plastic surgery to sharpen elbows

Evidence is mounting to suggest that middle class parents have found a new way to help their children get ahead in an increasingly competitive world. With much made of the need for ‘sharp elbows’ to improve life chances for their children in terms of school selection and internships, parents with naturally blunt elbows are turning to plastic surgeons to give themselves a competitive advantage.

‘We were prepared to spend whatever it took to get little Tarquin into a grammar school, but we were perpetually thwarted by the fact that he’s thick,’ said Marion Greenthwaite, 36, from Kent. ‘Even poor children who smelled a bit got in before him, which was an embarrassment in front of the neighbours. But since I’ve had my elbows sharpened, you just give them a quick shove in the ribs on open day and they go down in a trice.’

A spokesman for the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) confirmed that the number of pointy elbows procedures has increased by over 75% in the last two years. ‘I blame food banks. Middle class people thought the poor were getting something that they weren’t,’ he said. ‘Do you mind the acronym, by the way? We were doing a lot of breast implants in the old days, so it was quite funny at the time.’

Campaigners have claimed that elbow-sharpening procedures are unregulated and unsafe, adding that drug dealers and street gangs are increasingly using sharp elbows as concealed weapons. When George Osborne was asked if he was worried about this all leading to greater inequality, he smiled slightly and made no comment.

Labour has found itself split on the issue, with the left of the party arguing that all elbows should be removed at birth to counter the potential evils of entrenched pointiness, while Blairites have argued that pointy elbows should be available on the NHS. Asked how the poor would pay for this, a party spokesman said: ‘They’ll have to pay for it themselves. And if they haven’t got any money, they should jolly well get some’.